Liam Lawson playing catch-up in F1 return

Lawson has been promoted to race driver with RB in place of Daniel Ricciardo, who has been dropped for the final six races of the year.

The New Zealander has five races under his belt already courtesy of a string of cameo outings for Ricciardo last season.

While a year ago, his future was directly linked to the Australian’s recovery, and therefore, taken race-by-race, this time, the drive is his.

“It’s six rounds left of the season, so I’ve come in at a, you know, difficult time,” Lawson told Newstalk ZB.

“It’s going to be a very challenging point.

“Obviously, all these guys have done three quarters of a season now, so I have to try and try and compete with that now at tracks that I haven’t done as well.

“It’s going to be challenging.”

Lawson has been working as reserve driver for RB and Red Bull Racing since 2022 and has completed a host of Friday sessions and test outings in older-spec machinery as allowed under the regulations.

The 22-year-old has strong support from Red Bull’s motorsport advisor, Dr Helmut Marko.

For the moment, his future has only been formally confirmed for the coming six races.

However, Speedcafe understands a race contract is in place for 2025, though the finer details are not yet sorted.

An option in Lawson’s contract expired midway through September, beyond which point Red Bull is obliged to offer him a race drive next season.

Exactly what that means will be ironed out over the coming races, with the flexibility designed to allow Red Bull the ability to place him with either of its two teams.

“I need to perform,” Lawson asserted of the coming half dozen races.

“Basically, I need to try and obviously show my worth in F1 and, I would say do a similar job to what I did last year.

“What’s given me the shot now is what happened last year, so I just need to do enough to stay in the seat next year.”

Lawson impressed during his five-race stint last year, recording points in Singapore in what was the team’s best result of the season to that point.

While Christian Horner has stated that Sergio Perez remains his first choice to partner Max Verstappen at Red Bull Racing next season, Lawson offers a compelling option should his performances be up to the task.

By promoting Lawson for 2025, it opens the seat at RB for Isack Hadjar a year early and, in turn, makes Arvid Lindblad’s graduation simpler come 2026 – when Yuki Tsunoda is expected to leave Red Bull as it finally splits with Honda.